I had the privilege in 2002 of a most excellent late-season alpine ice adventure at Joffre Provincial Park in British Columbia. This area is suggested by Canadian guidebooks to be a premier destination for alpine afficionadoes. The area has been on my personal tic-list for more than a decade, ever since I first visited the park during a trip with the Vancouver Island section of the Alpine Club of Canada.

The primary objective was the northwest face of Matier (Ma-tee-ay, Canada is bilingual, eh?) I had seen this route -- the line is as obvious as the nose on your face -- on my earlier visit, and it had seemed a bit steep. I consoled myself with the rumors that some Canadians ski down the face in the spring. A friend from UBC had reported that he had found perfect styrofoam neve in September (quite a few years ago), so my Matier ambitions became coupled with dreams of crisp, clear Indian summer weather.

Then, in August, I bumped into Mike Lawrence, who had just been in the area. Fixing me with his steely mountain-guy sort of gaze, he reported that the face had looked, well, spooky. Hmm. So, with some excitement and some trepidation, I offered this climb for mid-September, and, lo and behold, four enablers (Jule Gust, Jerry Chang, Tom Lewis and Richard Johnson) became willing accomplices.

The drive north included a stop at MEC in Vancouver, followed by another stop in Whistler. We were trying to get a decent map, but MEC and the Map Store in Vancouver were all out. But in Whistler, the Escape Route, which I've always found to be a nice shop, had a couple -- which we promptly bought. Jerry wanted to stop at Death by Chocolate in Whistler, but we were unable to find it. He would exact revenge for this.

The hike in to camp at Upper Joffre Lake is only about 5.5 km, and since we arrived on a Friday, we had our choice of lovely shore-side campsites. Scenery, water, rodent-proof containers, a loo, the area has everything. Did I mention scenery? Almost directly above camp, the hanging glacier on the north face of Slalok gleamed crimson in the sunset light, and the Matier icefall stood out sharply like a ragged white crown above the cliffs at the head of the Joffre Creek cirque. Ah, the icefall.

We turned in at dark (about 8 PM!) with intentions of a 05:00 wakeup call. I was, as usual, awake at 3 AM. The stars were tremendous, with magnificent moonlight lingering on the ice routes above. And then between 4:00 and 5:00 I counted six separate calving events off the icefall --- shuddering booming things that echoed back and forth across the cirque. Cool!

We left camp at 6:15, taking a route up around the head of the cirque and under the headwall cliff. This was the cliff crowned by the icefall. Although parts of the icefall had been active only the hour before, we did not see any ice debris scattered around the base of the cliff. I wasn't feeling particularly exposed

------- BOOM! ----

We looked upwards. Nothing. But a rumbling sound began to gather intensity up there. We scanned the cliffs above, trying to decide if we should run, and, if so, which way! There were still no bits of debris avalanching over the gray cliffs above, but the rumble was growing louder. Finally we spied a great white slug of shattered ice oozing down a hanging gully ahead of us. There must have been some kind of catchment basin at the top of the cliff where the debris from those six earlier events had built up, and this last event must have destabilized this hypothetical debris pile, sending it down the gully. At the gully exit, the slug dumped over the cliff and onto the scree, an avalanche that included several washing-machine-sized blocks of ice that bounced and rolled and slewed and tumbled down ... down..... down ...... and .... across .... our path.

One piece came to rest a couple dozen meters away from us, collapsing into a pile of broken fragments. I walked over and picked up a shard of pale blue ice about the size of a loaf of bread. Cool! I wanted to put it in Tom's pack (ice cubes for later on?) but he was moving past me rather too fast at this point. From here we clambered up some polished slabs, generally on sound rock, following ledges and ravines up along the east side of the icefall, well away from any icefall danger. Meltwater was cascading over some of the slabs, making the climbing a bit wet. Oddly enough, a warm wind was dropping off the glacier above. Too soon I hopped onto the glacier, and we lost a bunch of time scrambling over bare ice and a few crevasses. But shortly we gained the glacier plateau, having left only a neutrino biner and an ATC to the gods of gravity (who eagerly pluck these things from the hands of Those Who Fumble.)

Although one can see the NW face of Matier from the trailhead parking lot, it is behind and not nearly as dramatic as Slalok. But Matier is the tallest in the Joffre group, and from the glacier plateau it commands the entire theatre. The big, broad, sweeping face reminded me of a skyscraper. The face was all in shadows, but we could easily pick out features: a vast, dark blemish of bare ice on the east side, nearly a third of the face; a huge bergschrund cutting across the bottom; a second monster crevasse (another bergschrund?) cutting across the top.

It was the most beautiful thing you could imagine on a clear September day! Spookiness seemed to take a backseat.

I tied into a rope somewhere between Jule and Jerry. Jule led across the lower bergschrund on a big fat snow bridge and vectored straight up the face, placing pickets every rope length or so. I clipped through the pickets. Jerry had the onerous job of collecting the pickets. Pickets are diabolical things to rack, and none of us had an exemplary system. Slowly Jerry became festooned with pickets. He racked them on the right, on the left, behind his back, across his chest. Initially, after he had racked the first two pickets, they occasionally clanged together like the sound of a cowbell from some distant alpine meadow. Very atmospheric. Later, the festoon emitted a nearly-continuous clanking racket, reminding me very much of the sound of my pickup truck on the drive north.

In addition, Jerry's feet were not fitting particularly well in his plastic boots (a problem which can be excrutiating when executing French flat-footing crampon techniques.) Jerry was probably having the least amount of fun of all of us. But he never complained. Part way up the face, at one belay stance, I asked him how his feet were, and the answer (the only answer, given the location) was "It doesn't matter." Now THAT'S climbing!

Jule skirted the bare ice (dark and a bit spooky) and went straight up. We simul-climbed with running picket belays pitch after pitch. The neve was wonderful. The angle was slightly more than 45 degrees: on the upper face I finally found the best technique for me was to use both axe and hammer in piolet poignard, which allowed me to transfer some of my weight off my calves (and ankles) and onto my arms. I was thankful for all the dips in the gym. It also helped me keep my head up so I could soak up the views. Up to the summit, across to Joffre and Hartzell and Spetch and Slalok, down the face (there's Jerry bowed under by all those pickets) up to the blue sky. Wow!

Jule reached the upper bergschrund and hesitated, walking back and forth. She yelled something down to me which I didn't understand. She stepped out of site, and I heard her pound in a picket. She reappeared and yelled down, "Watch me!"

Um, OK. "Watching!" She stepped out of view again. I watched. I waited. The rope was full out. Nothing happened. Um, what do I do now? The rope started inching upwards. Stopped. Started again. I climbed slowly, at the same pace. At this point, Richard powered past us on the second rope, dragging Tom helplessly behind.

I never did see Jule again on that pitch. At one point I heard her shout faintly, "I'm at the top!" I reached the edge of the schrund and saw where she had led around and up and over a steep snow bridge, and then traversed hard back above. A picket protected the traverse for me. Far off to the left, on a sharp-edged snow ridge, she was at the summit rock. She seemed impossibly far away. I launched across the sketchy snow-roof and thugged my way up a steeper bit to the traverse. I clipped through and found myself on the crest and in the sunshine. Too hot! Too bright! I wanted to retreat back down to the spooky stuff.

We reassembled in the rocks at the top of the route, and then scrambled to the summit. The weather was fantastic, just a hint of haze building in the west. We were surrounded by a sea of snowy peaks, and it was amazing to recognize none of them -- such is climbing in BC, where the familiar Cascade landmarks (Rainier, Baker, Stuart) are Too Far Away. By good fortune, we ran into the party of sometime UWCC-listserver contributor Ade Miller and none other than Don Serl himself, who pointed out and put a name to many peaks (all of which appear in his new guidebook, wink wink.) We talked Don and Ade into descending (they were on the NE spur route) ahead of us, so we wouldn't get lost.

Back at camp (we got back just before sunset) we found the lake to be hopping with weekenders. Somewhere a dog was barking. People were everywhere. We ensconced ourselves at our waterfront digs and kicked back, snarking with self-satisfaction (and loud enough for passersby to hear) about our fine day on the heights. Sunset cast a crimson light across the north face of Slalok.

The hike out on Sunday was short. Several of us boasted in passing to a group of women hikers about the serac-fall that nearly hit us, and others of us poo-pooed the danger. Apparently these women subsequently admonished Jule for climbing with "those MEN", the latter pronounced with some degree of disgust. (Perhaps justified: we were, after all, a gaggle of stinking ice climbers.) We tried to stop at Pamela's Cookshack in Pemberton (because Jule wanted more adventure) but we had to settle for the Wicked Wheel pizza house nearby. Here Jerry had his revenge for missing Death by Chocolate, ordering a slice of chocolate cake BEFORE his entree. Interesting strategy: the cake arrived immediately. The rest of us were left to watch and wait until our salads and dinners came up. He ate the whole thing. Without sharing. He said it was good, too.

Jule, who had a regular pizza in Pemberton, scored a couple of cheeseburgers at a gas stop in Squamish. The first burger was literally gone before we had pulled out of the parking lot, and the second was gone before we were halfway through Squamish. She explained that, as a mountain bum, she was burning about 5 million calories/day, and Gu and couscous just didn't do it...

If you are keen on alpine ice routes (and good at foreign languages, particularly Canadian) I would highly recommend Matier in late September. The bugs are gone. The access is great (although the drive is long.) The exchange rate is favorable! The crowd is multinational and diverse. (You will be able to put down on your resume that you climb internationally.) The scenery at Upper Joffre Lake is spectacular. The snow freezes up quite nicely, and can be really good. I wish I could climb routes like this forever.